


Christmas Traditions

by dameofpowellestate



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Canon Compliant, Found Family, Gen, angsty teenage Stevie is a whole mood, hints of Twyla/Stevie, mentions of Karen/Ronnie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:01:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27769474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dameofpowellestate/pseuds/dameofpowellestate
Summary: Ronnie was an anchor—she and this yearly tradition were all Stevie had until the Rose family rolled into town.Or, Stevie and Ronnie accidentally spend a Christmas Eve together which sparks a tradition that seems to last a lifetime.
Relationships: Ronnie Lee & Stevie Budd
Comments: 41
Kudos: 53
Collections: Schitt's Creek: Frozen Over (2020)





	Christmas Traditions

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [SCFrozenOver2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/SCFrozenOver2020) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> Stevie's family, well, sucks. So when she was in high school, she and Ronnie established a tradition or two together during the time of year when most people were spending time with their families. 
> 
> This can be set when Stevie was in HS, an ordinary celebration when they're both adults, figuring out how to hace this together when they're both adults, or coming back to it after they haven't done it for a couple years; that's up to you.
> 
> (I can't prompt Stevie Budd & Ronnie Lee bc it's not a canonical tag, pls help save us)

It’s been too many years to count since the first Christmas Eve Stevie spent with Ronnie at the café. She was not quite 18 that first year, and it’s not changed since and Stevie’s nearing 38 now.

Well, it has changed in some ways. Sometimes they’d meet at the café but more often than not it was in Ronnie’s apartment until she could afford her house, though there was one Christmas when the kitchen at the café was out and Ronnie was having some remodeling done. That year they’d gathered around Stevie’s small kitchen table in her equally small apartment. 

Sometimes Ronnie cooked, sometimes they ordered food. Some years they watched a movie after eating and others they’d sit and talk. Very rarely they’d bring along a date, though Karen joined them for many years until that relationship fizzled out.

Now that Stevie thinks about it, maybe the only consistency was them. She likes it that way. Her relationship with Ronnie was hard to explain to outsiders… to anyone really. She wasn’t necessarily a maternal figure, or strictly a mentor… and friend didn’t quite cover it either. 

Ronnie was an anchor—she and this yearly tradition were all Stevie had until the Rose family rolled into town. 

Which is why she’s surprised when Ronnie brings up their tradition two weeks prior to Christmas after they’d finished a meeting about one of the motels Stevie has hired Ronnie to do some work on.

"You know, if you wanted to spend Christmas with the Rose-Brewers it would be alright," Ronnie says, grabbing them both a glass of wine now that the meeting portion has officially finished.

"I have very few traditions, well really just this one… I'd like to keep it," she says softly, a shoulder lifting seemingly in an attempt to deflect the amount of emotion a statement like that holds. 

She knows Ronnie knows, there's no way she wouldn't after two decades of Christmases spent together. 

"We could always…" Ronnie starts but pauses to roll her eyes and plop down at the table across from Stevie, "merge some together. If they find it agreeable we could do a bigger thing next year. David and his toe of a husband, Twyla too…" she says, shooting Stevie a significant look at the mention of Twyla.

"You'd let Patrick in your house?" 

"Obviously not, we'd have to do it somewhere else,” Ronnie says, clearly very unimpressed with that option.

“But that’s something you’d want to do?” Stevie asks.

Ronnie just shrugs, “They’re your family too.” 

_ Too.  _

Stevie looks down at her wine glass in an attempt to hide her soft smile as she imagines all her people together in one place for Christmas. 

She has so many people now, such a change from all those years ago alone in the café at 17 on Christmas Eve.

*********

_ 21 Years Earlier  _

The café decorated for Christmas wasn’t too different from the café the rest of the year. Still pretty sad and an acceptable amount of grimey. 

There were decade-old dusty lights strung along the counter, the only new shiny bulbs were the ones that must have been burned out that year and she’s pretty sure she recalls a very Charlie Brown-esque tree shoved in the corner… so nothing spectacular but still, better than the alternative. 

It’s fucking Christmas Eve and Stevie's here at the café with nothing but her portable CD player, an old, tattered copy of  _ A Christmas Carol _ that she’d picked up from the motel lobby when she’d stopped to see Aunt Maureen, and the credit card she stole out of her father's new girlfriend's purse three weeks ago for company. 

It was one of the old credit cards at the bottom of the purse so she hadn't been confident it would work until she bought a pack of cigarettes at Brebner's last Tuesday when she'd skipped the last half of the school day. 

No one was even home tonight, so at least she was here… surrounded by people. Well, one elderly couple she's seen around town at least a few times and the pimply teenaged boy behind the counter instead of her sunshiney friend. Even Twyla was off work and at home with her family, which Stevie is sure is a raucous event.

She restarts the CD and puts her earphones back on, the angsty sounds of Avril Lavigne's voice making her feel just a tad less alone as she waits for her burger to be delivered. 

She stretches her legs out and slouches down enough for her feet to rest on the booth across from hers.

She's halfway down the page, Scrooge is just now being visited by his old business partner, when her feet are unceremoniously pushed to the floor, her dirty Chucks echoing loudly as they slap against the tile.

"What the fuck!" She says, yanking her earphones off and tossing them down onto the table.

"Better watch your language tonight if you're expecting anything other than coal in your stocking," Ronnie says dryly, already sliding into the booth across from her. 

Stevie just rolls her eyes and gestures around her. “You think I'm gonna even get coal? You think I have a stocking?"

Ronnie looks Stevie over and nods once. She picks up Stevie's discarded menu and waves the server back over. 

Stevie eyes Ronnie suspiciously. She hasn't had too many interactions with the woman but she's always seemed extremely… cool? Too cool to live in this godforsaken town. She wears leather jackets and jean vests and Stevie’s even seen her on a motorcycle going through town as loudly as possible. 

She’s always seemed to be extremely sure of herself, someone who doesn’t give two fucks what other people think and Stevie… really wished she didn’t care, about anything—but for some reason she cares way too much about everything.

Tonight Ronnie’s wearing a dress though, which… obviously wear whatever the hell you want? But it does seem a little out of place for eating alone on Christmas Eve at Café  _ fucking _ Tropical. 

"Um… are you staying?" Stevie asks, sliding her CD player over to the wall and turning it off, setting her book on top.

"You think I just came in here to what? Make sure some bratty teen didn't have their sneakers on a booth? I'm hungry, you got a problem with that kid?"

"You don't have a family? Or like, a date or something?"

Ronnie lowers the menu just enough to meet Stevie's curious gaze over the top, her left eyebrow in a perfect arch. "My family looks about like yours. I'd rather be alone than make the 8-hour drive back to that hellhole."

Stevie wonders how Ronnie knows anything about her family, not that they haven’t had long, drawn-out blowouts in the grocery store when her mother finds her way into town.

"I wish I had an 8-hour drive between me and my hellhole." 

Ronnie laughs, "Give it time kid… one day you too could tell your family to fuck off." 

Stevie smiles at that, thinks maybe she'd even like that. Except Aunt Maureen and maybe Nana Budd, they're at least bearable.

"Well, you still look way too nice to be sitting in this café in that dress," she says.

Ronnie doesn't lower the menu back down until after the server takes her order and then disappears into the kitchen. 

“I had a date,” she finally says, “both of us alone for the holidays, but she cancelled at the last minute so now I’m here with you,” she says with a shrug.

“Was it like, a first date or…” 

“You ask a lot of questions.”

“Well don’t take it as a sign of caring, just… nosy.”

Stevie feels scrutinized under Ronnie’s gaze as the older woman studies her, until she seems to come to some realization about Stevie and fully relaxes back into the booth.

“It was a second date, so really not that big of a deal,” she says with a shrug. “I’m 33, not dead. Plenty of time to keep looking.”

The waiter brings their food out not long after that. They eat in silence, Stevie holding back a list of questions now a mile long. 

She wants to know how Ronnie got here, how she knew she wasn’t straight, what it’s like living on her own, if adulthood really all it’s cracked up to be. She wonders if Ronnie holds the answer to all of life’s questions, she seems like she would… she seems confident. Sure. Comfortable. 

Stevie sees it, the confidence in the set of Ronnie’s shoulders and the determination in her gaze. It’s just right there, for everyone to see. 

“How–“ Stevie starts then stops, taking a moment to swirl a French fry around in the puddle of ketchup on her plate.

“You gonna ask me another question kid? I’ll let you have one more for free but then dinner is on you.”

“I guess… just, you seem so sure of everything? How?” She finally spits out.

“It starts with knowing who you are and what you want out of life,” Ronnie says, gesturing with a limp green bean speared on the end of her fork.

Stevie nods and shoves the fry in her mouth as if that was obvious… as if it sounds easy. 

“You’ll get there. Just start living,” Ronnie says, like it’s the simplest thing in the world.

Even though she doesn’t ask another question she uses her father’s girlfriend’s card to pay for dinner anyway and when they split ways Ronnie shoots Stevie a smirk and says, “Same time next year?”

Stevie grins and nods before taking off towards home, a little more confident and with something to look forward to. 

********

In the end, they have Christmas at the Brewer-Rose cottage, Ronnie grumbling about it not being a neutral territory but accepting anyway. 

Stevie does invite Twyla who readily agrees even after Stevie specifies that she’d like to bring Twyla as her date, not friend. 

Patrick makes the best turkey any of them have ever had and he even lets Ronnie carve it. There’s stuffing, pie and mulled wine and it’s… a lot. 

When they gather around the fire pit in the backyard that evening, the mulled wine in mugs, Stevie feels warm. 

Not from the wine, maybe a little from the fire, but mostly from this day… this moment. 

Twyla clutches her mug in one hand and has the other clasped firmly in Stevie’s. David and Patrick are cuddled up together across the way, their faces glowing from the fire and probably still a bit from whatever matrimony does to two people. Ronnie’s on Stevie’s other side, leaning back in her camp chair and smiling proudly at Stevie… at this tradition of theirs that had formed from rejection and bitterness at the world and their circumstances and then grew into love and acceptance. 

**Author's Note:**

> This took three people in my document, all my love to those folks.


End file.
